About this project

You supported us, spread the word, stayed awake nights to push the campaign. Now we are willing to do this for you! Crunch like hell, stay the weekends, consume loads of coffee and Red Bull Hogan to make THIS happen: Releasing DieselStörmers on Steam Early Access already in July 2014.

The People behind Dieselstormers

Reward Add-Ons:

By adding USD 7 to the Scout or higher tier you can choose to get an additional digital console copy (PS4 and XboxOne is set, WiiU with a high chance) on top of your PC copy of the final game.

By adding USD 15 to the Vanguard or any higher tier you will get an additional Early Access key and final game copy

By adding USD 18 to the Drummer tier or any higher tier got get a physical copy of the Dieselstormers artbook.

By adding USD 19 to the Drummer tier or any higher tier to get a physical copy of the Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams artbook. This is limited to 27 pieces as this is just the number of artbooks we have left from the Giana Kickstarter and we will not produce new ones ever.

Double-Barreled Champions tier:

DieselKnight 3D-model for 3D printing that comes with the USD 45 tier

Dieselknight 3D model - details may change

Welcome to Ravensdale, a city where medieval meets machine, a place where armor is powered by roaring engines, princesses wield wrenches in oil-stained overalls, and not a single dragon dares to brave the smog-filled sky.

Classic run 'n' gun, customizable equipment and team tactics!

DieselStörmers is a furious run & gun game that follows the inhabitants of Ravensdale taking back their city from a rampaging ork horde. On release, the game will have a story/campaign mode that allows you to pick among a range of different missions with varying difficulties, objectives and parameters.

You can play in singleplayer mode or with up to four teammates in co-op multiplayer mode to enable additional team strategies like energy arcs between players, team upgrades, complementing shot patterns and the parallel use of environmental objects. Co-op at its best.

With your support we will bring the game to Steam's Early Access program. This is the perfect program for indie developers to involve dedicated players in the games development. The final game will be released on Windows PC, followed by Linux and Mac versions (Steam). We are also planning for XboxOne, PS4 and WiiU. Steam provides a great infrastructure for online co-op-games. As supporters of DRM-free gaming (see Giana Sisters) we will provide a DRM free version as soon as the sales success makes it viable to set up this infrastructure ourselves.

Combine frames, barrels and engines to create your own weapons

You can assemble your own weapons out of parts, constructing them from a constantly growing pool of random loot drops, combining different shot patterns with special properties like rebounding, creeping, eruptive, incendiary, goopy and many more.

Enemies combine weapons, abilities and sometimes even body parts!

Enemies have exchangeable weapons, gadgets and even body parts to create different combinations of how they move, attack, and which special abilities they use. Example abilites include berserking on a trigger condition, transporting environmental objects and propagating elemental hazards like goop and fire.

The bigger the challenge, the bigger the reward

Missions are guerilla warfare-themed and typically involve you sabotaging, assassinating or liberating something or someone in ork-occupied territory. Optional mission goals can be fulfilled along the way for bonus rewards. Those usually involve tougher, but avoidable challenges like reaching an objective in time or taking out particularly tough or evasive enemies.

Pick missions that suit your style, skill and ambition

Missions also have a procedural element, combining primary and secondary mission goals with special mission parameters unique to their location. A mission playing in the harbor district, for example, runs the risk of getting periodically flooded with goop, while liberating the arcane district would have you deal with gravitational anomalies and grant you infinite air jumps.Once we add bosses to the mix, they'll rampage over the mission map and can be seen in the background of all levels in their threat range, where they'll blast you with aerial bombardments and doom beams until you take them out for good!

The contents of each level chunk combine to create unique situations

The levels are assembled from different layers that combine to provide a constantly shifting and growing context for environment-focused tactical action gameplay that you can exploit by pushing, pulling and launching yourself and your enemies.

Drain the energy well and put your Arc Connector into Overdrive!

In DieselStörmers, you won’t just be running and gunning – the oil rig city of Ravensdale is a gigantic junkyard and fire hazard, full of explosives, goop pits, crumbling platforms and a plethora of other tricky traps that don’t only hurt you, but your enemies as well.

Play smart, and you’ll be able to tackle way tougher content than you could with brute force. Gear factors in as well, as does having teammates on your side. A properly-equipped team of well-coordinated players is virtually unstoppable!

Like most elements in the game, the hazards combine with each other: for example, the sticky goop that permeates the city conducts electricity and can be scattered about with explosions or set ablaze with fire. They interact with your weapons as well: sending creeping projectiles through a goop puddle leaves behind sticky, incendiary trails, while bouncing projectiles through lightning weaves a zapping web.

Equip Arc Connector upgrades to boost your entire team

While the pure run’ n ’gun part of the game is already
cooperation based, DieselStörmers offers the ultimate tool of tactical
cooperation: the Arc Connector – a mythical entity that connects the squad
members with each other and only releases its powers when they work together as
a unit. Is there an incoming heavy mech that is almost bulletproof? Well,
that’s no problem for a well-coordinated squad that knows how to use the arc
connector for zapping! Or do you want to summon a pure goop creature instead that
turns against your enemies? That’s also possible. All you need to do is to
collaborate!

The Arc Connector group upgrade can be retrofitted with a variety of mods that stack across players. Boost your entire team with new ways to move around the level, indirect attacks and projectile upgrades!

We are Black Forest Games, a development studio comprised of over thirty veteran developers from all around the world. As our name indicates, we’re situated in the Black Forest area in southern Germany.

Our studio was founded by and is largely composed of the former Spellbound Entertainment team, which already has titles like Desperados and Airline Tycoon under its belt.

Our projects cover most platforms (Windows PC, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii U, Linux and Mac, plus Xbox One and Playstation 4 for future projects), and our focus lies on classic arcade fun with top of the line visuals.

Partner in crime is Jonathan van den Wijingarden, congenial composer, sound mastermind and long term companion of BFG.

You may have already seen us on Kickstarter, where we successfully hit the goal for the completion of our Giana project in August 2012 and released Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams as planned in October 2012, one of the very first games to get greenlit on Steam. We also recently released GS:TD's standalone expansion Rise of the Owlverlord (83 metascore).

Our second Kickstarter in August 2013, Project Ravensdale, wasn’t as
successful. We fought with strong support from our brave backers but we didn’t
reach the goal to get funding for the complete production.

As a consequence, we went back to work for hire projects, working on the
prototype whenever we could spare the manpower.

Now we are back - DieselStörmers is picking up where Project Ravensdale left off! We've spent a lot of our own time and money to get the game up and running, and have reached a state where we have
something playable and presentable. With the help of this Kickstarter, we intend to push DieselStörmers to a playable state ready for Steam Early
Access, where we can continue to expand and enhance it from there. As we aren't gunning for full funding like last time, our goal is much more modest this time around. By funding
our Kickstarter you can get in on day one, and help make sure DieselStörmers is fully
packed with metal-pounding goodness!

To show you that we mean business, we’re releasing a copy of our prototype as a free download. This is not an actual level, but a spruced-up merger of the different testing areas we used to experiment with rendering pipelines and gameplay features.

You won’t find any of the modular stuff here yet, and anything you see is bound to change considerably, but you can already play both solo and have a blast in local co-op - check out the polished visuals running on our own engine and the smooth controls! Pick up pre-assembled weapons like the sparkcaster overdrive, hover, dash and grav-pull yourself through the air, and slam orks and goblins into the burning streets below!

Risks and challenges

FINANCIAL: We’ve been working on the build for close to a year now, in-between work for hire that pays the bills. The development has been fueled with our own free time, enthusiasm and money. A financial boost gives us a dedicated team to work on the project without interruption – there is no danger of DieselStörmers getting cancelled for lack of funds.

SCHEDULE: We have the ambition and the desire to push the envelope on DieselStörmers. Given the experimental nature of some aspects of the game, this requires a lot of testing and tweaking, but we are now past that stage, and the features simply need to be cleanly implemented and polished.

TECHNICAL: We are using our own powerful rendering tech that was developed in-house over years. Our coders know the codebase by heart and are extremely productive with it. One of the major remaining risks of doing DieselStörmers is that this is our first true multiplayer game. To address this, we’re running an internal prototype that runs the game in networked multiplayer mode to make sure that we have all of the primary risks covered early. Additionally, we have a testing system up and running that assembles level chunks on the fly based on the rules and parameters set by our level designers.

BOTTOM LINE: we have shipped Giana and its expansion on an incredibly tight deadline in the past. DieselStörmers builds on the same technology base and is made by the same close-knit development team. Concepts and features we weren’t familiar with yet have been tested and experimented with via prototyping.

Pledge $35 or more

All DRUMMER tier rewards + your name in the credits + a backer-exclusive battle standard for your Diesel Knight

This mighty symbol of your support will fly above your armor's engine, strong and true!

Estimated delivery:Sep 2014

You selected

Pledge $45 or more

55 backers

DOUBLE-BARRELED CHAMPIONS

All STANDARD BEARER tier rewards + an additional digital copy of the game with an Early Access Steam key + a digital Diesel Knight model for 3D printing

Enlist a friend to the cause and print your very own Diesel Knights!

Estimated delivery:Oct 2014

You selected

Pledge $60 or more

39 backers

FULL-FORCE FIRETEAM

All DOUBLE-BARRELED CHAMPIONS tier rewards + two additional digital copies of the game with an Early Access Steam key each

Add two more friends to your team for a total of four furious enforcers!

Estimated delivery:Oct 2014

You selected

Pledge $100 or more

24 backers

DUKE OF DIESEL

All DOUBLE-BARRELED CHAMPIONS tier rewards + a physical collector's edition of the PC game. The box will be delivered after the final game's release which is planned for Q2 2015.

Get the collector's box edition!

Estimated delivery:Oct 2014

Ships anywhere in the world

You selected

Pledge $200 or more

30 backers

PATRON OF WARFARE

All DUKE OF DIESEL tier rewards + a physical copy of the artbook and soundtrack, a physical copy of the Making Of, a T-shirt and a can of Black Goop + a Black Forest Games bag to hold it all! The physical goods will be delivered after the final game's release which is planned for Q2 2015.

All the loot you can eat!

Estimated delivery:Oct 2014

Ships anywhere in the world

You selected

Pledge $500 or more

5 backers
All gone!

DIESEL LORD

All PATRON OF WARFARE tier rewards + a DieselStörmers hoodie to keep you warm and cozy + a DieselStörmers canvas art print + you don't have to 3D-print your Diesel-Knight yourself - we will do it for you, put it on a pedestal and let the team sign it + special mention in the credits as a Diesel Lord + you can name a boss! Delivery of one physical part before x-mas, the other after final game release.

Get it all and leave your mark on the city of Ravensdale!

Estimated delivery:Oct 2014

Ships anywhere in the world

You selected

Pledge $1,500 or more

3 backers
Limited (2 left of 5)

GOOP INQUISITOR

All PATRON OF WARFARE tier rewards + you are involved in the design of a boss! His powers, his visuals, his weaknesses. Your ideas are part of the development. You name him + you join the BFG team on GamesCom 2015 presenting DieselStörmers!!! + a DieselStörmers hoodie + a DieselStörmers canvas art print + a 3D-printed Diesel-Knight + special mention in the credits as a Goop Inquisitor! GC attendance includes GC exhibitor pass, board and accommodation, and all parties the BFG team will attend! Delivery of one physical part before x-mas, the other after final game release.

All is not enough? Then this one is for you!

Estimated delivery:Oct 2014

Ships anywhere in the world

Funding period

Apr 29, 2014 - May 23, 2014
(24 days)

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